Nepal helicopter crash: no survivors found

All 24 people on board a helicopter chartered by conservation group WWF in Nepal were killed when the aircraft crashed in bad weather two days ago, an airport official said today.

The helicopter disappeared on Saturday while carrying Nepal's forestry minister and 23 other people, including foreign officials, aid workers and journalists.

Purushottam Shakya, an official from the civil aviation authority of Nepal, said rescuers who reached the wreckage confirmed that there were no survivors. The authority's focus was now on bringing the bodies back to the capital, Kathmandu, he said.

"Bodies have been found. Only one body is in a better shape and can be recognised. Pieces of bodies are scattered over a steep slope near a gorge," he said.

The cause of the crash is not yet known.

WWF, which had hired the helicopter for a trip to one of its conservation projects, said seven of its employees were on board, including four Nepalis, an Australian, a Canadian and an American, when it went down in the Taplejung region, 190 miles east of Kathmandu.

The helicopter was also carrying Nepal's forest minister, Gopal Rai, the Finnish embassy's chargé d'affaires, Pauli Mustonen, and the United States Agency for International Development deputy director in Nepal, Margaret Alexander.

Several Nepali journalists, government officials and four crew members - two Russians and two Nepalis - were also among the passengers.

A Nepal army rescue helicopter spotted the wreckage on Sunday and a team of seven rescuers reached the crash site on Monday afternoon. Earlier attempts by local mountain guides, police and soldiers to locate the helicopter had been hampered by rain and fog.

The Russian-built M1-17 helicopter left Ghunsa village on Saturday morning, but failed to arrive at Suketar village, its intended destination, a 20-minute flight away.

Officials said villagers had reported hearing a loud noise in a gorge soon after the helicopter left Ghunsa, situated in a region that is home to the world's third-highest mountain, Kanchenjunga.

Himalayan Nepal has a poorly developed road network and many tourists and officials travel by helicopters or small planes to remote mountainous areas.

Eighteen people, including 13 Germans, were killed when a commercial plane crashed in the hills of western Nepal in 2002.